


today is made of yesterday (i was not magnificent)

by hallowgirl



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Cross-Party Relationship, Hate to Love, Holding Hands, If You Squint - Freeform, Kinda, M/M, Opposites Attract, This is just endlessly tragic, and perhaps I should write something about Labour's crisis but at the minute I'm sorrier for Dave, angst so much angst, from enemies to lovers, like I can't believe he's going
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 15:32:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7469103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallowgirl/pseuds/hallowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> And at once I knew I was not magnificent</em>
  <br/>
  <em> Strayed above the highway aisle</em>
  <br/>
  <em> Jagged vacance, thick with ice </em>
  <br/>
  <em> And I could see for miles, miles, miles</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <em>This is the way things have been for six years, and one day, one day when his children are his age and their children are their age, this will be the way things were once.</em><br/><em>That's the way it will be, he supposes, and the way it always is.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	today is made of yesterday (i was not magnificent)

**Author's Note:**

> Written while listening to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oCPAO3bp4Q  
> Angst and sadness and nostalgia, anticipating David's last PMQs tomorrow. Written in a state of almost-crying. Title comes from the song "Holocene" by Bon Iver and the poem "The Lost Ingredient" by Anne Sexton.  
> (Also on a less emotional note: I'll be starting to take fanfiction commissions soon, which I'll be posting about on my [Tumblr](http://hallowgirl.tumblr.com/) soon.)  
> So, back to emotion and angst.

_And at once I knew I was not magnificent_

_Strayed above the highway aisle_

_Jagged vacance, thick with ice_

_And I could see for miles, miles, miles_

 

_-"Holocene", Bon Iver_

 

_Today is made of yesterday, each time I steal_

_toward rites I do not know, waiting for the lost_

_ingredient, as if salt or money or even lust_

_would keep us calm and prove us whole at last._

 

_-The Lost Ingredient, Anne Sexton_

 

_*_

It isn't customary to arrive this early, but nothing feels customary.

It is strange, when you look at the chamber, to realise suddenly just how long it's been there. David's eyes have always skated quickly over the many different features-the long green benches, the Speaker's chair, the dispatch box-and they've never settled, now, it seems like, never properly taken the details in, never taken the time to notice.

Because it always seemed there would be more time, always more time, and that seems like hopeless carelessness now.

He looks out at the chamber and the thought strikes him, as it has through days and nights and meetings and debates ever since the moment he'd heard Powell's words echoing through his head as he stared at the TV screen, emblazoned with the one failure that would stay there, reaching through and sinking its' fingers in and braiding itself into the minds and thoughts and memories of the people who'd put him there in the first place; that this chamber has seen bombs and strikes and guns, has seen terrorism and invasions and money pouring away, has seen brothers pulled apart and a wedding that brought people together and two royal births and an Olympic ceremony that drew fragile bonds between them all for a while and too many elections to count and a final referendum that swept them off their benches and turned them upside down and too many Prime Ministers and now he'll be just one more.

But the chamber is still there, watching.

And it feels like something he should have expected, or maybe did expect all along, when the door opens and David hears the footsteps behind him, and does the briefest glance over his shoulder, which is all it needs.

He watches Miliband move out of the corner of his eye, to the Opposition frontbench and he stands still, leans forward so he's resting his weight on his arms. David notices all of this out of the corner of his eyes, the same way he notices the sweep of Miliband's eyelashes as he glances down, and the darkness of his eyes as he glances up.

"This must have an element of schaedenfreude" he says, so he doesn't have to look at him.

"No." Miliband's voice is smaller than usual, and he says nothing else, which is what makes David believe him.

He leans an arm on the dispatch box. He wonders vaguely how many times he's done that, if that's something any Prime Minister before him has ever done, counted how many times they've touched this dispatch box. The Prime Minister's seat, the door to Downing Street. He wonders if anyone after him will.

"How does it not?" he asks, voice a little tighter than he means.

Miliband straightens up, and just looks at him, David can tell, the same look he's felt so many times before. (David sometimes thought they could have had a whole debate like that, just looking.)

"I don't hate you." Miliband shrugs, as if that's the easiest thing in the world, and David realises he's looking at him then.

He stares at the Speaker's Chair, grinds his teeth together. "Your party's tearing itself apart" he says, when he can trust himself to speak.

There's a silence and then Miliband just exhales, as if he's tired of it all anyway, and maybe David is too, and says "Yes."

David makes himself say. "People say this could tear the country apart."

A pause, then "Not quite."

"You think this isn't what they'll write about, then?" David tries for a laugh. It doesn't come out polished or smooth or charming. It comes out cracked and trying and a little sad.

"When they, ah-" He clears his throat. It doesn't work. "When they write about-" He'd been going to say "Me" but it comes out "This."

He turns then and they're standing across the chamber from each other.

He looks at Miliband and Miliband looks at him, and he could say something about all the times they stood here, and everyone else who stood here, and it could be trite and it could be sentimental and maybe it would have the right to be.

But instead he just looks at Miliband and then his mouth moves and he says "Do you think we get remembered?"

Ed just looks at him, and then raises his shoulders in a small shrug. "You know you'll be remembered."

"Do you think we get remembered for the right reasons?"

The slightest corner of Ed's mouth twitches a little. "What are the right reasons?"

David laughs a little, and it's sadder and smaller because in six years, he hasn't worked that out. In six years or eleven years or fourteen years or twenty seven years or thirty one years. He hasn't worked it out, exactly, since those days at Oxford when all there were to worry about were white shirts and champagne glasses and the promise of a future.

He hasn't and he wonders if anyone else has either, or will.

"What about this?" he says and it should be Miliband who's tripping up on his words.

But Ed just looks back at him and _this_ hovers between them. _This_ being the two of them sitting across the chamber from each other, and him and George preparing for PMQs every week since that December of 2005 when he walked out onto a stage to a new Conservative party, and Nick sitting next to him, even as they pulled their parties together and apart and together and apart again. This being every Wednesday lunchtime, with him and Miliband (because it was never the same with Corbyn, not really) throwing every line they could at each other, both of them clawing for a leadership and for a country and for their own place in history and he doesn't think either of them managed to carve out the one they wanted.

This is the way things have been for six years, and one day, one day when his children are his age and their children are their age, this will be the way things were once. What were debates and ideas and policies and arguing and fury and triumph and despair and victory will be reduced to simply the way things were, a bunch of years scrambled and pushed and squeezed together, in which a bunch of people ruled who some people hated and some people loved, and a bunch of things happened that now litter the pages of their school textbooks, and all it is and will ever be to them is the way things were, when to them it was life.

That's the way it will be, he supposes, and the way it always is.

He looks at Ed Miliband and says "Do you think we'll remember?"

Ed Miliband just laughs and this time, he turns away too quickly and says "I think it would be hard to forget, Prime Minister."

"Do you think this happens to everyone?" is what one of them says and David actually isn't sure who but it's Ed who says "Yes, I think-I think it has to be-" and his face twists and he looks so sad for a moment, David could almost cry. "I think things have to _end"_ and he says it like it hurts.

They look at each other for a moment and it could be six years ago, it could be a minute ago, but suddenly David just wants to hold onto it. This little bit of what everyone was, for just a few years, just a little while, that will seem like a blink to his children's children, and seemed a lifetime of its' own to him and Ed and everyone else whose names will one day ring in history lessons.

David leans on the dispatch box and Ed stands across the chamber. And then David gets up and walks round towards him. Ed watches him inscrutably for a moment, and then does the same.

They stand there in front of each other, in the middle of the chamber and for a second, David just looks at him, at the one person he used to imagine beating but perhaps never really had to, or perhaps it was easier to.

He extends his hand, the way he's done plenty of times before and will plenty of times again, and Ed takes it. They shake once firmly, up and down.

"For what it's worth" David hears himself say, and his voice is a little stronger, the hint of a smile underneath now. "It was a pleasure arguing with you, Ed Miliband."

Ed's mouth twitches in a smile and a dimple creases in his cheek and it's the saddest look David's ever seen in some ways but it's a smile.

Ed's hand squeezes once, in his. "It was a pleasure arguing with you, Prime Minister."

David winces. So does Ed.

He squeezes David's hand again, and then says, with the smallest of grins, "It was. David Cameron."

Their names hover between them and they hover there for a moment, the Commons around them, watching like it's watched everything else over the years.

"No" Ed says and David didn't ask him anything aloud this time. "I think they'll remember other things."

David looks at him and Ed looks back, and their hands squeeze again.

He doesn't say "Thank you" but Ed nods and then touches his arm, hand warm and stronger than David remembers.

They stand there for another moment and then one of them nods and the other follows and they both turn to walk to the doors, to leave the chamber, until later when the benches will be full of names and the room will be full of words and debates and more that will one day be the way things used to be.

David only stands at the door for a moment, and he takes in the green benches and the Speaker's Chair and the dispatch box. He takes them in with a sweep of the eyes and then he and Ed Miliband walk out of the chamber and he isn't sure whether or not he's let go of his hand.

He looks for another moment before the door swings closed, at where he'll be later, for the last time. The way it will be remembered, as the last time, and Ed's hand tightens around his own.

And then there'll be his first time on the back benches again; and Theresa's first time at the dispatch box and one day it'll be the last time for her and the last time for Bercow in the Speaker's chair and one day the last time for all of them, and that's what it will be remembered as.

He'll give his last speech and the words will hover; and then he'll leave the chamber and that will be the end, and that will be the way things were once. Him and Ed and Nick and George and Theresa and Yvette and Michael and Boris and Tim and Theresa and Jeremy and Andy and John and all of them, everyone who's ever walked in these halls or breathed their words into the House, everyone who's ever been.

All of them will one day simply be the way things were.

And the Commons will watch it all, and it will stay the same and watch it all, the benches and the chair and the dispatch box and the chamber and the House. It will all still be there, even when they're simply people who used to be.

And the Commons will keep on watching, keep on watching and always will.

*

_The sun is shining_

_and the birds_

_are singing_

_and because today_

_is the very last day_

_they will sing forever._

_-(listen while you can), A Softer World , Emily Horne and Joey Comeau_

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is kind of endlessly tragic but that last poem from A Softer World summed up my feelings pretty accurately, I feel.
> 
> Leave a comment if you liked it. :)


End file.
